July 31st, 2008

A.G.

that’s AG, we dated for a few months in 05. after we parted, she got married, pretty quickly if memory serves. (see).

well tonight i heard an email come in, i didn’t check right away like always. then i heard my buzzer, i ignored it as thursday and friday nights on 9th ave, my buzzer rings a lot and it has nothing to do with me.

but when i read the email, ‘are you home??’ and thought of the buzzer, i picked up my phone, called, and before she even picked up the phone, my buzzer was ringing again, she was at my door. i hadn’t seen her in 2.5 years.

she had been having dinner across the street with a friend and checked to see if i still lived here, i do. so they came in and i told stories while they looked the walls. then for the first time ever, AG happily let me take her picture. she couldn’t stop laughing so i didn’t even really look through the camera or at the images as they came up, the goal became make her laugh as hard as possible, i stopped when her eyes were red and full of tears, but got a few of those too of course.

at one point as i lowered the camera, my hand hit the dial over to bulb, so for one frame, i got this one, 5 stops overexposed. somehow, tonight as i write, this is my favorite.

i make this mistake often.

July 31st, 2008

Wake.

pennsylvania

July 28th, 2008

Billy Ray Cyrus.

hard to tell in the video above, but that first little bump and yahoo you hear in the video is me trying to catch air in the rented SUV while we followed billy ray cyrus on his dirt bike around his 500 acres as he showed us locations in the middle of his private ranch. not the smartest move i realize, but given the moment, it seemed appropriate.

it was a great 72h in Tennessee, minus the insects, heat and short trip to the ER for the insect bites back in NYC. this was the second of two different TN shoots, both full of small, wonderful adventures. more on the other once sharable.

it was a perfect shoot. too many spots to choose from for the time allotted, a great and seemingly eager subject who has probably been photographed more then anyone can count, a subject that knows the drill more then i probably do, a good groomer, a good crew on hand that all had happy vibes and one photographer all too excited to be photographing billy ray with his dirt bike and in a thicket, deep in the heart of Tennessee.

he graciously jumped back into the last shot so i could get my snap with him, he went to put his arm around me and the moment it made contact he pulled it back, ‘man, you’re soaked!’ seeing how it was about 95 degrees in the shade, soaked with sweat was for certain, just glad i didn’t pass out, that would of sent the wrong kind of star struck impression.

i want a shoot like this at least once a week.

July 23rd, 2008

11 minutes, 32 seconds.

11 minutes, 32 seconds – 2 sets, 2 different shots. one less then excited to be photographed subject. i asked for a different expression, even said weird things to try and throw him off for a change of expression, nothing. i did at one point get him to look off camera towards the light, so there’s that, but i got a simple “no” to all the other ideas i threw out…

at one point, he asked if he could get a passport image from me, where’s the slot to put his quarter. i think it was a joke, but he was a hard read, so i have no idea if it was just an awkward stranger moment, awkward getting my picture taken moment or if he was making fun of me.

i stepped into the room we were to shoot in 41m and 45s before my 11m 32s with our man started.

July 23rd, 2008

Apologies.

1/3/06 – 3:09 AM, the last time i saw you before we moved on.

sometimes i wish we could speak again so i could apologize for everything. other times i wish we could speak again so you can apologize for everything. either way, i wish we could speak again. i wish we weren’t so far away from each other, in every sense of the word away. you’re in that state and i am in this one, somehow, that makes whatever this is easier.

as different as our lives are now, i never envisioned a day we wouldn’t know each other anymore.

5/16/06 – 1:23 PM, the first time i saw you after we moved on.

July 23rd, 2008

Romain B.

i have two friends who have been married twice.

R.B. | 7/25/08 | #1RN

July 15th, 2008

Stories, Now Touchable.

own some stories. small details and hiccups with myself and the printer more or less worked out, the ones left are eventually getting solved. so here it is, issue one now available. the plan is quarterly or 4 randomly timed issues a year. the printer is still in beta, but has been helpful in addressing my concerns and honestly reacted well to all my thoughts and attention to detail. i am a stickler or pain in the ass, so i was impressed with the good effort the printers have put forth. other issues of stories and all together different projects already under way. i believe good things lie ahead. i love technology sometimes.

i wanted to do this for me. i started this site after the journals here or here slowed down and i stopped printing like i used to. all the journals i did were more letters in that they were given away upon completion, so these stories and this new ability to print them is now kinda the same as the journals, just very different. it also just feels really good to make something you can touch and share it with others that enjoy the types of things that i do.

July 13th, 2008

ER.

i hadn’t been to an ER (for myself) in 8 years. oddly enough, that was on a shoot too, however it was from a broken foot on a water slide outside chicago, accomplished after the actual shoot was over and before the next one.

this one sorta happened on the actual shoot, a first. working for a magazine in the woods of tennessee, i got covered in what i thought was just ticks, none of which ever seemed to borrow in or needed fancy removal.

yet 24h after getting back, turns out i was covered in at least 40 of these, (yes, i counted). no idea what it was that got me, but they hurt, they itch and made things happen in my body that scared me enough at one point to seek professional advice.

i still think it was a great trip, better even because of this, somehow.

as a side note, if you work in the billing cubical of an ER and are the last person a patient sees, what are you doing wearing a bad bling watch and a $ ring? class act my friend, you are the cherry on top of the american health care system…

July 13th, 2008

Saturday.

11:13:24 PM

11:22:44 PM

July 13th, 2008

A Service Flag.

nashville. the delayed flight made me wonder. i went up to the window while on the phone and looked down, just looking around as i do and saw this parked almost out of sight.

being in NYC i never see many if any service personnel unless it’s a special occasion. i mostly just see personnel in airports. usually in texas or florida, where i fly most, both heavy with military bases. it always really upsets me. i wanted to join the military from childhood up through high school till a knee injury kept me out. so even before the war, i was always filled with a sense of jealousy and respect for those that did what i cannot. it always upset me for reasons that aren’t as obvious as the ones today.

it took telling this story to someone else one day to point out the scene in little miss sunshine and ask me if my feelings where similar to the boys frustrating reaction to a suddenly unattainable dream. i had seen the movie, and didn’t even put it together on my own. i was the same age as the character in the film, wanted to be a pilot, it was all i wanted to do and while i didn’t not talk, it wasn’t a far off mark of some of my behavior back then.

so much reality of it all is lost in the city or maybe i just don’t see and feel the loss as easily as i do when i go somewhere else. the service member walking across the terminal, the service sticker on a car in traffic, a decorated luggage car half hidden by the gate. i’ve seen the images of how commercial flights transport remains. so sometimes, when flying and lost in my head, i wonder if there are any on my flight.

i’ll never know, but sometimes i feel the sense of loss anyway as if there were. i don’t even know anyone who has died or served, but while watching their faces on the news, thinking of them on a flight or thinking of it all later alone in a hotel room, it’s just overwhelming.

July 13th, 2008

Sunday.

3:26:36 – 3:31:52 – 3:32:30 – 3:33:14 – 3:34:16 – 4:22:41 PM

July 11th, 2008

LGA to BNA.

i got to go to nashville. i flew there a few months ago on jet blue, it was so easy and pleasurable. it seems they no longer fly there, so i had to go AA the only direct option i found, what a joke. the price, the treatment, things should get better as the years ago by, but it seems everything is declining. i was treated poorly, overcharged for my checked gear ($380 each way) and the simple trip home on a sunny day was delayed so many hours, that i got home at 330am the day of a 530am call time back in ny. finally my inablity to sleep became an asset as i got the shot done, done pretty well.

the pics are from the trip to BNA. i knew i would only sleep on the plane if i pulled an all night wake for an 830am flight. i don’t remember sleeping much, but the pictures from across the aisle i got snapped of me prove that i did. thanks GH.

July 11th, 2008

Tennesee Clay Target Complex.

9 or 10 skeet/trap fields and 2 clay courses = a happy place. took GH shooting for the first time, he was there to help me make pictures for a magazine and i dragged him to a shotgun facility, in the july heat and TN woods, classy. first time he ever touched a firearm more or less shot a shotgun, he seemed to enjoy it, he hit a lot of them, so i hope it all ended as a good thing, only he really knows.

my 25th club picture and another simple yet beautifully designed shell box.

PULL.

the little guy there with all the legs i found on my shirt back in the hotel room an hour or two later. my 60 hours in TN would become or otherwise awaken me to a entirely new level of insects love jonathan experience.

July 6th, 2008

2 stories that aren’t mine.

tonight i got a call from someone i haven’t heard from a lot lately. they called because they had to share with someone that would appreciate that they had just seen a man walking a goat in their neighborhood on a leash just like it was a dog. i did appreciate it, i wish i had been there.

less then an hour later, the same person called, while walking their actual dog in the park, the dog had found something fumbling around in a bush a little too long. turns out the dog had found a handgun, at first, they thought it was a toy, but after not getting too close and calling 911, yup, within 3 minutes of the phone call, a policeman arrived and confirmed it, the dog had found a handgun. i appreciate this call too, i wish i had been there.

the most surprising part of both these manhattan stories to me is the dog, this dog cannot sniff out it’s own toys in a 300 square foot apartment, how did it smell or otherwise stumble upon a handgun?

July 5th, 2008

K.F.

July 4th, 2008

Kit.

kit lives down the street. i first met him about 16 years ago. we’ve both lived in NYC for years now and he is another person i know from school that lives really close, yet i never see.

i invited him over months ago for a portrait, he agreed, but said it may be awhile, it was.

last night i got an email, i had no idea who it was from, it was an address i didn’t recognize, had the simple subject line ‘foto’ and only said, “around this weekend?”

i assumed it was someone i met at some point or someone that reads this site, so i replied not knowing who it was, “yes, i am. want your foto taken?” turns out it was kit.

today, july 4th, i finally took his photo.

July 1st, 2008

Connecticut.

July 1st, 2008

KC Beachy.

These are old, but most people miss them on my other site and I just found the box of prints again. I really wish I had a digital camera when I made these. I had to scan these 99 here, and I made them too small a scan back when, so to do the project correctly now, will simply never happen….

At my friends wedding in PA, I met KC Beachy. A week after the weekend I met her, I flew to Colorado to see her again for another weekend. I made some photographs that weekend, but the most joy was had with polaroids, we couldn’t stop making them and kept buying more and more.

The weekend after that, I went to Europe for the first time, taking a polaroid of her smiling with me. When I first called her, I told her I was looking at the Mediterranean and looking at her picture. She didn’t believe me, so I took a picture of her polaroid and the view. Before my short time in Europe was over, I made over 500 of these images.

I put all 500 in a box and mailed them to her. When we spoke next she said it was the best gift she ever got, yet I never saw her again… (her choice, not mine).